Schema Therapy
Schema Therapy helps explain some of the deeper patterns that shape how you think, feel, and respond in your life today. Many of these patterns begin in childhood, when important emotional needs may not have been consistently met.
Over time these early experiences can form schemas. Schemas are long-standing patterns made up of beliefs, emotions, memories, and body responses that influence how you see yourself, other people, and the world around you.
Schemas can be useful in certain situations, but they can also become rigid and painful. They often sit underneath difficulties such as anxiety, depression, burnout, or relationship problems. They may also show up in familiar patterns like people-pleasing, overworking, withdrawing from others, or using substances to cope.
What Schema Therapy involves
Schema Therapy focuses on helping you understand:
What your schemas are
When they tend to be activated
How they influence your reactions and decisions
Where there may be opportunities to interrupt old patterns
Many people find that simply understanding their schemas, and noticing when they are being activated, can bring a sense of clarity. It can also make it easier to experiment with different ways of responding.
What Schema Therapy involves
What Schema Therapy involves
Patterns Schema Therapy can help with
Schema Therapy can help uncover the deeper drivers behind behaviours such as:
Self-sacrificing or people-pleasing, especially when it feels automatic
Overcompensating behaviours such as perfectionism, overworking, or taking on too much responsibility
Detaching or numbing behaviours, including substance use, gambling, or emotional withdrawal
These patterns often developed as understandable ways of coping with earlier experiences. Therapy offers an opportunity to understand them with compassion and begin developing more flexible ways of responding.
How I use Schema Therapy
I do not practise Schema Therapy in a rigid way. Instead, I draw on schema concepts and integrate them with other evidence-based approaches such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), self-compassion approaches, solution-focused work, and attachment-focused therapy.
This allows the approach to be adapted to your needs, preferences, and the pace that feels manageable for you.
In therapy we look at what may be driving the patterns you are noticing in your life and consider practical ways of loosening their influence over time.